


A Dark Sea of Advice

by autumnsnowfall



Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Anti-Social Personalities, Difficult Decisions, Gen, Hints of Past Trauma, Mentions of Death, Mild Language, Misery Loves Company, Pre-War, Sarcasm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-02
Updated: 2021-01-02
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:41:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28495500
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/autumnsnowfall/pseuds/autumnsnowfall
Summary: Rain can never mask inevitabilities, just as ignorance can never delay uncomfortable truths. When given a harsh reality, sometimes the strongest reaction isn't to fight. Sometimes even the hotheadedness of a Cat Witcher's emotions need to be put aside to see the best path. And if a dead Grandmaster and a season Mentor can't help, what hope is there for a crumbling school?When given an ultimatum, what would a lone cat decide?
Comments: 10
Kudos: 17





	A Dark Sea of Advice

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this in a little under a day, but what can I say? I simp for Gezras. And all the cats.

It wasn’t shocking to see no one on the road. The amount of rain coming down had turned the tiny village from a simple knit circle of crossroads into a blue haze of mud, fog, and cold. Anyone with an ounce of intelligence in their bodies would be indoors or at least have sheltered somewhere dry; Even the voles and mice dared not come out in such a deluge. Yet here he was walking in it. Sometimes he truly wondered if it was because he was missing some sense in his head or if the Path made it easier to accept.

Whatever the reason, at least he was alone. Soaked, but alone. And that was enough for now.

He passed under a tree that seemed to cry fat, howling drops onto him, but like everything else, he merely accepted it as he kept his steady stride. Every raindrop, every rhythmic bead of water that beat against his body was just a reminder of how wicked the world could be. Summer storms could chill to the bone just as easily as winter winds. Yet, there wasn’t even a point to shake off his cloak or hood, despite the steady rain obscuring his vision and soaking through his boiled leather to his chilled skin. He could only endure it as he walked on the edge of the road, unwilling to step into the mud until he was forced due to a fence or sharp cut of a house. As Cedric used to say, perseverance was better than bitching. Easier to keep on walking than to sit and cry.

Still. There was a comfort in complaining. And even more in being dry. Once he was done this meeting, he was going to find an Inn to sit at for a while. Maybe even buy an ale to help fill his stomach. Spiced, warm, and good enough that being watered down wouldn’t diminish the taste. The thought kept him going as he passed by a butcher’s yard, the blood from the cutting tables draining down the road to mix with the mud. His bloods momentarily sported a bright shade of red before it churned into a sorry brown hue. Mud, blood, piss, shit; It all was the same after a while.

Around him, through the pounding rain, he sometimes heard movement between the scattered houses, barns, and stables. Shutters being closed, a child yelling, cows braying, dogs barking. But for once, none of it was directed at him. It was all the common sounds of a sleepy, backwater town full of people whose problems at the moment weren’t his presence. Even the guards didn’t seem to care as they stood listless and miserable in their sunken spots, their wet gloves clutching wooden spears, old hewn bows, and commonly made swords. Their eyes were directed at the forest, not whoever was passing through, and he even shot a glance to it, knowing what they were looking for. Living so close to Brokilon, he didn’t blame them, but it wasn’t his business just as he wasn’t theirs.

He continued on with a mind to not disturb them, his eyes lowered and face hidden deep under his hood so no flashes of light could reveal himself. For all they knew, he was a vagabond, just passing through. Another wanderer from Cintra or Brugge. He purposely made himself a ghost, stepping lightly and quietly when clumps of grass sprang up and allowed, his cloak pulled around him enough to dissuade strangers from mistaking him for someone friendly but also loosely so that guards wouldn’t pull him aside for thoughts he was a brigand. Not that it really mattered - one look at his face and eyes and they’d be spitting, hissing, or shaking. Even a blind child could tell what he was. But for all the times he should be used to it, he didn’t feel like being told an insult that day.

Maybe it was true what common folk said; Rain makes one morose. Or he was losing his teeth the older he got. Whichever the reason, he slinked off as quietly as he could and the only thing that seemed to notice him was a goat that had gotten loose and was chewing dandelions by the roadside marker. They acknowledged each other - cat eyes meeting goat - but the billy neither seemed interested to bleat out in distress, nor move from his spot. And he in turn gave it the space it wanted, stepping beyond the boundaries of the hamlet that was still being pelted by rain. Just another village, like any other.

Though sometimes sleepy hollows and huts proved to be very interesting when their secrets were found.

It was under a particularly large oak tree that he saw the first signs of what was coming. It stood at the very edge of the last farmer’s field, majestically holding itself up near the soft, slow creek that curved and bent around its roots and the land. A great beast of wood that had been allowed to stay, marking where the wilds ended and man began. Tamed, yet not. Gnarled, yet impressive.

But low in the branches, a body was swaying, and he paused to stare at it, letting the rain spatter on his face. Not because he was shocked, but his natural curious nature beckoned him to do so. To gaze at a man whose face was half-missing, pecked by crows and other carrion lovers, his skin shedding off the bone. To the point where his jaw was loose and hanging, threatening to fall to the road. The noose around his neck had been done tight and angrily and though the parchment that was hung around him was soaked, streaked, and running, he could see what the declaration was.

Nilfgaard Spy.

Even tiny farms couldn’t help but bow to the fear of coming war.

Whether or not the man was guilty didn’t matter to him. Corpses were familiar friends to a Witcher, and he looked beyond the great oak to where the aspen and poplar forest began. He had come to the forests for a reason, and it wasn't for unfortunate hanged men, nor for the sins they bore, imagined or not. His destination lay within the untouched trees and he crossed the wobbling wooden bridge that sank and sagged under his boots, noting that it was probably a few weeks from collapsing all together. Good thing he was traveling now - he hated crossing streams. As soon as he got within an arm's reach of the trees, he stepped from the mud to escape into the thicket. Disappearing silently between the arching willows like a wraith in the night. Quiet as a mouse yet with the quickness of a cat.

Immediately he felt warmer as he broke through the thicket and the sounds of rain became gentler and kinder to his ears, no longer the harsh beating that thumped on his head. It became a melodic and harmonious tapping, softened by the moss, humus, and grass under his boots. Yet even the wistful melody soon turned to noise in his head and his steps grew heavy as roots threatened to knock at his balanced motions, tangling at his feet and clawing at his cloak. The forest turned dark and wet, moreso than the road, and leaves, thorns, cobwebs, and sticks soon glistened over every part of his body the further he pressed on. Scraping at him, slowing his stride, until he was left with a bitterness in him as his breath came out more labored than normal. Forest trekking was not as easy as everyone thought. Nor as whimsical.

There had been a time once when he loved the sound and smells of rain in a forest. Back when he was young and naïve and thought only of catching frogs and beetles and chasing his sister with them. As soon as he was changed, the world lost its magic and wonder and he in turn lost a part of himself that had enjoyed it. Forests no longer were havens or adventurous lands. They were monster-breeders, grave eaters, and feasters of flesh and bone. They consumed without eyes, not caring if it was a child or a Witcher, and after a while it was hard to find admiration for them when they all became the same consumers of living beings.

Aiden had once remarked if he stopped brooding and put his mind to it, he could enjoy it again, but he was beyond that at this point. What he wanted was another job and to possibly get a better set of armor and a new cloak. His boots were starting to fray around the heel and he had less than a handful of orens to his name. Forests were good for that - feeding a Witcher. But as the age turned on, even they were growing less accommodating to both monsters and superstitions. No longer could he be paid enough for wolf heads when townsfolk now carried swords and little fear. How could he appreciate such a creation when not even its most gruesome monsters gave him enough money for leg of quail?

Distantly, he heard crows calling - perhaps lamenting he wasn’t a meal - and he pulled his cloak tighter around himself as he found a deer trail to cut down, his mood souring as his mind rolled over his sorry sack of coins and pouch of hardtack and salted fish. It would be stupid to go south into the broad, civilized lands of the Nilfgaardian Empire, but maybe there would be contracts still available in their so-called 'decent' world. Though part of him doubted it, it was something to keep him from being completely miserable as he crossed onto another path. This time larger - an Endrega? Or wild horse? Did he care?

Again. Wouldn’t it be nice to sleep somewhere warm for once? To bask in a hot sun where even the rain was like bathwater? If Aiden wanted him to be so damn positive, maybe he could do it if he could sleep in the open-air without three furs wrapped around his frame.

Then again, he really needed to stop living up to his School’s name. Dreaming about warm sunspots like an old barn tom that didn't even mouse anymore. If he wasn’t careful, he would be eating catnip soon. Then he'd really never hear the end of it.

On that thought, he focused, changing his eyes to see the forest as he walked further into the heart. Enough for him to pick up the clues he had been given and make the correct turns when they came. At the heart of the forest was a lightning struck tree. From there a copse of birch, then an old abandoned bandit’s camp, followed by three spruce trees tangled into one, and a cave big enough for a group of wild dogs. Past that it didn’t take long to find the hut he was seeking, but he still paused before it to assess what he was dealing with, his fingers touching at his back pocket where the tightly folded paper had been tucked.

This had been a farmstead, but a poor one at that. Hidden deep in a forest in the wilds of Cidaris. Some poor sod had brought his family here thinking he could make a fortune if the land was tamed, but in the end the forest overpowered man and drove them off with nary a scrap of fortune to be gleamed for their efforts. There were stones in the ground that marked what had once been budding buildings, but all that stood proper was a slumping house made of lichen-covered logs. As sad end to the naïve optimism of humans. But again, such things didn’t interest him. This was where he was to meet. Joël had been clear, but no Witcher took words on paper as truth. Not if they wished to live longer than a decade. It wasn't just another abandoned farm - it was a perfect spot for an ambush. Hidden away enough so that no one would find his body by the wolves.

Too perfect to be anything but suspicious in his eyes.

He waited beside a young aspen, letting his paranoid instincts flood his body and spark his senses to take hold to the point where he could smell the worms in the ground. It sent the world around him into a colourless, unforgiving realm where rain and leaves became white and sounds could not only be heard but pinpointed, and he felt the hairs on his arm stand up as he did so, his nerves crackling as the magic began to beat through his veins. The mutations in him snickered as they breathed and made him into the unnatural monster he was, but as much as he hated using all his senses at once, he wasn’t stupid enough to walk into an ambush.

But as paranoid as he was, nothing moved inside and he found his breath stuttering as he strained himself to try and see more - through the wood, between the cracks. Maybe to an underground cellar where there lay something waiting. A heartbeat. A hammering. The taste of tension that bandits tend to stink of when they wanted to kill.

Yet again, nothing stirred. No voices, no shuffling, not even breaths from highwaymen who thought they were being clever and quiet. It was as dead as a grave and as soon as he released his senses, the forest flooded back to him in tones of green, grey, blue, and brown. Normal colours in a normal copse of trees. Yet his shoulders slumped as if out of defeat. He wasn’t disappointment - no Witcher was disappointed they weren’t about to be killed - but his paranoia hadn’t been soothed. Something was bothering him, but he couldn’t narrow down what. Not readily.

Was this a trap? Was he overreacting? Did it matter as long as he got out of the rain?

There was always a chance he was wrong. Senses could be altered and fucked with; Mages knew potions that could render him as weak as a child. But as he stood, he felt his bones ache as if he had fought a Fiend. He could fight if needed, but deep inside he was too tired and wet to care. He wanted Joël to be inside. To maybe talk with someone who understood the weariness the Path brought. He had been wandering alone for four years at that point, but the paranoia would always live in his chest.

He sighed, reaching to pull out the note, and he read it again as he had done that morning and the night before. It looked like his handwriting. It smelled like the inside of a pipe. Why was he so doubtful? Why did every encounter he have force him to take a suspicious air?

He scoffed at himself for a second at the conflict stewing in his mind. Why wouldn't he? He was a Witcher. A Cat. His nature was to be erratic, impulsive, and snide. To see everyone as an enemy, even friends. That the world was nothing except honey-coated lies.

But honestly, he wanted out of the rain. And in the end, paranoia never could defeat the need to just damn well be dry.

Slowly, he made his way forward, his pupils growing to suck in the darkness as he stepped in through a doorless frame, and he was met with nothing but emptiness inside. No chairs, no table, no hidden cellar door or strange cabinets, not even a shelf on the wall. What remained was a gutted hollow with only a sooted fireplace nestled against the wall. One barely blackened from use, he noted. Built to be used heavily, yet never getting the chance to. He sighed as his cloak and armor dripped onto the floor, soaking into laid boards that were warping due to their age and exposure, and he let out a purposeful breath to see how long it lingered in the air. It hung for a second, a small cloud of white mist that dissipated into nothing and he felt the heaviness of his rain-socked armor and belts. They were as tired as he was, despite being inanimate objects, and he knew when he felt that, it meant he needed to sit down. He needed a rest.

For his forced daily positive thought, he concluded that at least the roof hadn’t collapsed and left the place as miserable as it was outside. Though he doubted he could light a fire in the cold hull and dry himself off, as whoever had left had thought to take even the wood, it was barren enough that he wouldn't be sitting in a puddle. All he could do was determine which spot looked appealing enough to settle into as the grey light of the sky grew darker, beckoning evening to come, and it cast the hut into a somber atmosphere. The rain thumping above with only tiny spiders to keep him company inside. 

What else could he do? He found a corner to claim. Like a miserable child that had been scolded for stealing a pie or a dog that had been kicked for baring its teeth. He chose the one farthest to the left of the door, where he could monitor anyone attempting to come in.

The fireplace seemed to mock him from the other side of the wall, its cold mouth opened wide, yawning and begging for a fire. Yet he could only sulk away from it. How he longed for a bed that night.

As much as he was aching to get dry, to feel the warmth of a fire, the taste of cooked meat, or the beautiful rhythm of drawing a whetstone against the grain of a blade, he chose to become one with the shadows on the wall. Curling up like a forgotten object, hiding all his features but his eyes so he could watch the door. Something Axel had taught him on the nights they were tested to be as quiet as the Cats they were to become. The rain beat against the roof, drops leaking in from where the thatch had started to open and sag, but he remained motionless as he settled and waited. Testing not only himself and his adherence to the lessons from long ago, but the truthfulness of the letter he had been given. Whoever entered after that point would either be met with words or steel - no other. If it wasn’t Joël he’d show no mercy.

His stomach growled, but he ignored it, his breath soaking into the dampness of his cloak, leaving moisture clinging to the wool. All that mattered now was to use his paranoia for his gain. Something he had honed more than his other skills over the last few years. Patience. Violence. Quickness. Kill before the blade took your insides and pulled them out.

As the light died, he remained vigilant and motionless, fighting every muscle spasm and cry from his sinew and bones so he could witness whether or not he had been tricked once again. It hurt - he wanted to scream and get up and stretch, twist, and crack - but his will to not be fucked with overrode discomfort and pain. Every hour began to bring back thoughts from past times. Storehouses with locks on it and too dry of grass near the bases. Edges of hills and town edges where Ealdorman thought they could push him if they lured him close enough. Roads that had not had any wagon or horse track going down, but the locals insisted he go. So much safer, so much shorter than the other ways.

Drowners nests that were empty, but the trees surrounding them were not. Women that shrieked for mercy after they had tried to cut his throat. Over and over, each decade bringing some new type of trick to punish him for doing his job. It brought up bad tastes in his mouth and he could almost feel his saliva turn to blood, reminiscent of so many trials. He tried to be forgiving. Aiden wanted him to be. He really did attempt to make the best out of the shit hand they were dealt with in life, but the longer he went on the harder it got for him. Too many times was he treated like pig shit in the yard, yet he was supposed to overflow with compassion when the pay was less than the price of a few carrots at the stall. 

Everyone else in the world got their vengeance free and without consequence. Yet he wasn’t allowed despite not having a choice in the matter. It made him shift as he stared at the entry, his skin now as cold as his woolen cloak and muddied boots. He would not die being manipulated - or if he was going to, he preferred to take out as many whoresons as he could.

He hadn’t been forced to become a beast to die like one. Even if some days he wished he did.

How he missed being innocent sometimes. How he wondered if anyone was left on the damn earth who truly would treat him with kindness.

Soft steps broke through his thoughts and he instantly reached behind him to grapple for the handle of his steel sword, flexing and tensing as the rain outside nearly muffled the approaching being. He licked his lips as he clasped his fist around his grip, the cat headed pommel nuzzling the backside of his little finger, but he didn’t strike or attempt to move. Not yet. Even as his blood began running hot and thick through him, anticipation rising in his aching limbs and shrinking pupils, he kept himself still. Poised, but motionless.

Could he attempt to down a potion? Maybe if things got ugly, he’d have to.

Only his thoughts of how to cleanly cleave through human bone vanished when the first figure entered through the door. At first all he could see was a silhouette. The figure was clad in dark colours just as he, a cloak wrapped around them obscuring their features other than the obviousness it was a man. However their silhouetted frame sported a clear shadow on their back that made him unclench his jaw and hand. Two swords, not unlike the ones he wore. Angled at a position for easy access and to be pulled fast when needed.

As soon as they stepped in, the shadows nearly swallowing them, a second figure came through as well - taller, but with weapons strapped to their back in the same fashion, and he found himself almost exhaling in relief.

Joël. He’d know him even from a hundred paces off, but the smell really solidified the old Witcher’s identity as he walked inside. The stench of wet tobacco clung to him, a habit the old Cat seemed still unwilling to give up. Only he’d reek that much of smoke and it made him almost smile as he let his arm slip away from his sword.

The paper had been genuine. For once, his paranoia was unfounded.

Both of them didn’t even seem to care when he stood up. The one was more concerned with the fireplace, their body drawn to it like moths to candlelight, and by the time he had shaken out his legs of their stiffness, the snap of fingers brought fire and a flickering orange light cascading meekly across the floor. It was barely any heat, but even through his damp clothes he could feel it and he let out an audible sigh, indicating his relief and irritation.

“You couldn’t have picked a warmer spot, Joël?” he asked, not bothering with introductions. No point when they all were conscious of each other in the space. The taller Witcher half turned, his black hair acting like a second hood that enveloped his neck and shoulders, but he could see there was a shadow of a smile on his weary face. “I’ve been here freezing for hours!” he complained, but not overtly so. He didn’t want to admit fully that he was glad to see him.

“Have you? You could have lit a fire,” Joël smirked, his voice just as ragged as when he was a child and his teeth equally as yellowed. “Unless you really want to be a miserable barn cat.” He rolled his eyes at him as he came forward. “You always were the dour one, cat fuzz.”

He gave him a half-assed glower. He nearly forgotten about that nickname. “Didn’t help that my teachers were miserable whoresons.”

“Who? Me? You must be mistaken,” Joël smiled. And he couldn’t help but do it too. Even after the years had passed, it was nice to see one Cat still maintained a sense of humor. Even if it was at everyone’s expense. “Gaetan. I’m glad you got my message.”

“Whatever,” he muttered, his eyes sliding over to the other Witcher that had his back to him, frowning at their silence. He was shorter than Joel, his cloak made out of leather instead of wool, but he could see something strange about his sword. Curved - Ofieri?

Joël caught him looking and he changed the subject. No point in dancing around the dead cyclops in the room when one answer could be addressed. “Where’s Schrödinger?”

Joël gave a shrug. “I couldn’t tell you.”

His response seemed oddly calm and he drew his attention back to his old mentor, waiting for anything more, yet nothing came. Even as he studied him, he could tell he truly had no clue from his body language alone. It was also clear he didn't seem too concerned on the matter either. “Isn’t he with you?”

“No,” Joël admitted. “I haven’t seen him in a while. You know how he gets.”

He really didn’t, but he wouldn’t admit that to his mentor’s face. There had always been something off about Schrödinger. Joël used to call it being ‘touched by the gods’ but the rest of them figured it was probably something they didn’t like admitting - that his mutations hadn’t gone quite right. There was another Cat who got fucked up as well, but both Axel, Cedric, and Joël always silenced any speak of such things. Their image was already poor and having more than one sociopath amongst them already made life difficult. 

Though Schrödinger was never particularly violent. Nor gleeful in his jobs. But he did have some sort of knack of bringing death with him wherever he went. Strong enough to affect every other Witcher around him. Even Aiden hadn’t wanted to talk of the scars left from the day a dozen wraiths had erupted from the earth. It was depressing to admit, but knowing the other Witcher wasn’t Schrödinger put him at ease. He wasn’t much in the mood to deal with toeing the line of living and dying in some crumbling hut. “So, what do you want?” he shrugged. “I’m not interested in traveling with the Caravan again. Or finding more ‘recruits’.”

Joël’s cheek twitched, but he didn’t pursue his thought. “Gaetan. Well.” He frowned and reached up to scratch under his chin, his nails pulling deep against an old scar that tore over his neck. “I’m sure you can feel what’s coming, right?”

It was an unconventional question, but he nodded, his eyes following the other Witcher as they moved to stoke the fire with a gnarled stick, pushing the broken branches together into a tighter pile. “You mean war?” The fire crackled after his pause. “Then yeah. Unless you mean something else.”

His old mentor sighed. “Yeah, I mean war. If you can tell then it’s definitely an inevitability.” He had to force himself to ignore the slight. “I’ll be blunt, kid. It’s not looking good. Especially this time.”

He almost scoffed. “When has war ever looked good?”

Joël didn’t seem to care for his quip. “I mean it, Gaetan. What’s coming is beyond what came before. You have heard what’s happened up north, I take it?”

He honestly had to think for a second. Rumors in taverns and inns only concerned him when coin was involved. There had been some talk recently, but no more than the usual murmurs. Noblemen taxing more, ships wrecking off coasts, children being stolen by the Wild Hunt. The only other thing he could think to relate was of something that didn’t affect him. Any Witcher, for that matter. “You mean the Catriona plague?”

“No,” Joël said. “The Kings of Aedirn and Temeria. Both of them were assassinated.”

He let his brow raise in interest. Now that he hadn’t heard.

“By a Witcher.”

For a moment he thought he had misheard. Only when he truly studied his old mentor’s tense expression did the gravity of what had been said weigh in. Kings killed by a Witcher? How was that even possible? The only one he knew willing do take on such a idiotic thing was dead - and even then, Brehen had never been subtle with his kills. Everyone would have known. “What? Wait, how? Who?” Joël gave a shrug. “Are you serious? This isn’t just some gossip from a Passiflora whore?”

Joël nearly scoffed at his own dismissal. “Whores have no interest in kingslaying, Gaetan. You should know that better than most of us.” He nearly went red at the implication. “And that’s the word. Across multiple borders, towns, and countries,” he scratched at his face again. “A Witcher is killing Kings.”

He spoke without thinking. Before he truly took in what had been described. “What’s this have to do with us?” Joël stopped scratching, his eyes moving to lock with his and for a second, he couldn’t help the flush that came. How Joël looked at him as if he was some snot-nosed sniveling brat - like he had done the first few days he had been dragged to them to be changed. He always hated when he got that look as if he was stupider than a newborn piglet and it nearly made him bare his teeth, his emotions clouding his thoughts as his arms crossed under his cloak. “What?”

Even the other Witcher had stopped, their face turned slightly as if to judge him as well, but he still couldn’t see their eyes. The implication was there, however. Both looking at him as if he wasn’t fit to chew meat on his own and he felt his blood rush and roll in his body. He wasn’t fucking stupid.

“What?” he snapped louder. As if the volume of his voice would change anything.

Joël narrowed his eyes immediately. “Think.”

“I am!”

“Without being angry!” Joël cut right back. “Gaetan, for fuck’s sake! Even you’re not this stupid.”

He finally bared his own teeth, the tension between them spiking. “Sorry I can’t read your empty, shit-filled mind, old man. Kings are being killed by a Witcher? Why do I care? Why should I?”

“Because you are a Witcher!” Joël spat, his own teeth showing like an old cat that had finally realized it still had fangs. Wide enough that it made him tense, the blades on his back begging to be unsheathed. “You think people care what Witcher is doing it? From what school or where?”

He stared back at him, nearly dumbfounded. Surely his mentor hadn’t become this senile this late in his age? “What, you think peasants are suddenly going to come after us with pitchforks over monarchs? Because a King that isn’t even theirs is dead? We’re in Cidaris, Joël! They have other things they care about!” He pointed out the door, back toward the direction he had wandered hours earlier. To where the first proof he wasn’t a fucking idiot lay. “They’re hanging themselves in the name of Nilfgaard! Not because they suspect each other of being a Witcher!”

“You really think they won’t hang you when they see your eyes?” The other Witcher finally spoke and it made him freeze, his mind blanking for a second as the lilt and the accent stabbed right into the heart of his mind. “That peasants will be the only ones out for your blood?”

His voice. It couldn’t be. Only Kiyan had a similar tone and he was dead.

Which meant..?

He nearly stumbled back when the other Witcher finally stood and pulled his hood back, his dramatics not diminishing the shock of who Joël’s other companion was. His smaller stature suddenly made sense, as did the curved blade. Given to him by the Aen Seidhe and used to sever the heads of how many damned mages and fellow Witchers and humans over the years.

His cat eyes pierced right through his body, turning him to stone in not only stance but tongue, and he could only gape at him like a foolish child. Unable to speak as he stared at the infamous ghost before him. Living and breathing and definitely not bloody dead. His hair was just as it had been written of - the colour of fresh blood. Scars that cut looked unnatural on a face like marble. A Witcher that he had been scratched out of books and scrolls time and time again because he had been deceased. Death unknown.

When he finally found his voice, it was almost meek. Humbled, even. Because it would be anything other than suicide to think he still wasn’t as deadly as he had been a near century before. “Gezras,” he stumbled over his name. He honestly didn’t know whether or not the title of Grandmaster even still applied. “I thought you were dead.”

He almost seemed bemused at his awkward statement. “I’m not.”

His amusement and odd smile only perturbed him more. “But Axel said-”

Joël cut in, his lips twisting into an ugly frown. “He was mistaken. Actually, we all were. Him, Cedric, and me.” Slowly, his eyes slid to the former Grandmaster, who didn’t seem at all bothered by their reactions. “Considering how long it’s been…”

Gezras continued to sport his eerie smirk, one that made him look more unsettling than he realized. He honestly couldn’t pinpoint if it was because he was a living relic of the first experiments or if it was because he didn’t look a day over twenty-three. Younger than him. “I wasn’t aware I have to tell everyone what I do with my life.”

“It would have been nice-” Joël started, but he was promptly silenced with a single hand raising. Sharp, stiff, and made to assert a silent dominance. Gezras didn’t even bother to look at him as he did it and even he could subconsciously feel how his mentor buckled under the wordless command. He had never seen Joël bow to anyone. It left his own nerves tensing in anticipation for conflict.

“Gaetan,” he said, his voice almost like a purr, knocking his confused gaze back to locking his eyes with him. It filled his arteries with instant regret. They pierced like a well-aimed dagger and made an uncomfortable unease rise under his skin. Like he should arch his back and hiss. “I’ll tell you as I have told your fellow teacher. I am not dead. And you will not try to pry me with what I have been doing.” For a second, he showed the barest hint of teeth; A clear threat for him to heed his words. “My life is my own and what I do with it is my own. Do you understand?"

He mumbled his response. "I suppose."

Quietly, he lowered his hand, his shoulders relaxing slightly, but he remained in a stiff, upright pose, his eyes still unnaturally digging into his skin. As if he was was a mere kitten in front of a tiger. “Good. But what I say is something to consider. Do you really think those peasants wouldn’t put a noose around your neck? Even in the name of King or Emperor that isn’t their own?”

He frowned deeply at the other title. Emperor. Gezras continued, as if he sensed his unease to the foreign word. “Nilfgaard is coming.”

His mind twitched at the statement. “Nilfgaard is coming?”

“That’s what I said.”

It didn’t make sense. It hadn’t been that long since the last war - four years? Five? He had been in upper Kaedwen at the time and hadn’t paid attention. He saw the battle scars after, like everyone else, but truth on the battlefield could only be known by those who saw it. Not by bards and serving wenches in taverns. “How do you know?” he pressed, nearly losing his nerve as the Grandmaster continued to regard him as if he was prey and not mutated as well. “Nilfgaard lost the last war. The North won. It hasn’t been that long.”

His cheek twitched and it made him itch for a blade in his hand. He felt too damn defenseless in his presence. “I didn’t leave Vicovaro because I like being cold, wet, and miserable. I’m here because I have seen it and I am telling you. Both of you.”

That made him furrow his brow. Vicovaro? That was hundreds of miles to the south. A land he only knew of from books. Wealthy, hot, and staunchly loyal to their conquerors. “What were you-”

His eyes almost flashed and he gave him a smile that didn’t meet his eyes. One that drove a shiver down his spine. “What did I say about prying?”

He let his words die in his mouth, the air between the three of them growing stale and cold with tension. Even Joël shifted, his jaw clicking slightly, and he found himself wishing he was outside again. Standing in the rain, miserable, dour, and soaked. Fucking anywhere other than being physically and mentally devoured by a damned ghost of a Witcher. One whose hair he wondered if it wasn't dyed from blood rather than being natural.

Joël thankfully saved him as he finally found his voice to speak, though the scratchiness of it made him wince as his ears twitched. “Grandmaster - Gezras - I think what Gaetan means is, well. What I wanted to know,” he said, attempting to study him in the exact same way. Yet even his old gaze couldn’t piece and peel like the former Grandmaster. “Why is Nilfgaard on the move? Are you sure this is a full scale war? You didn't exactly explain in detail last night.”

He let a pregnant pause pass between them. "I was waiting for when I could meet with your stray Cat, Joël."

His mentor's jaw twitched again. "Well, here he is." He gave him a side glance himself. "So, if you please, Grandmaster. How do you know this is another continental war?"

Gezras remained quiet for a moment, his eyes still boring holes into his skin, stripping it away like a panther did to birch bark, but after a minute of making him feel as if he was being flayed, his eyes softened. His pupils relaxed, turning calmer and less furious, and for a moment, he looked older than what he appeared. A hint that he wasn’t eternally youthful - that he was like the rest of them. 

Old. And overworked.

It wasn’t a secret Gezras was born half-elven. Their texts were written of it, telling tales of why Cats were always supposed to work with Elves, but the subtle flashes of his human side were just as deeply unsettling as his calm, restrained fury. Like seeing himself in a mirror or reflection of a lake; What being mutated did a man.

“It’s war. Plain and simple. A barracks draining, soldiers marching, siege engines and cavalry riding, rolling war.” He finally shifted slightly so his sly eyes could slide and meet Joël’s gaze. “Whatever the second war was, this is intended to surpass it.”

The old Witcher’s expression grew sullen. “The second war wasn’t exactly small.”

“Neither is the army coming,” he remarked back, his arms moving to fold, and for a moment Gaetan saw the flash of dark blue armor beneath the leather cloak. Rich and sturdily made. Ancient - archaic even, as if it was crafted by the first Aen Seidhe themselves - and he nearly wanted to interrupt to ask where he got such pieces. As inappropriate as it was. “I watched them march. And I’m very familiar with Nilfgaardians and their tactics, and what they hold above all else." He paused again. As if for dramatics. "They don’t like monsters.” He emphasized the last word.

“They’re coming to the wrong lands then,” Joël said, glossing over the implication.

Gezras let out a breath. “They’re coming right where they want to come. Pests can be eradicated. Even monsters can be driven to extinction.”

Joël’s expression grew grim. Even he could feel it as he started chewing over his words. He didn't speak as bluntly as they did and it forced him to pick back over his sentences. “Are you implying..?”

He gave a shrug, his gaze sliding away for a moment, but his arms slowly unfolded and moved to adjust a belt on his hip. “I told you. This isn’t my choice to be here. But if I have to be, then I’ll do the last of my duties.”

"The last of your duties? Which is-?"

It was then that his words sunk into his mind. Even though he wasn’t explicitly addressing him, the undertone was like a hammer against an anvil. Sharp and harsh - a jolt to his soul. “Do you mean-?” he spoke up, making Gezras and Joël both snap their eyes at him. He finally understood why they had considered him stupid earlier. “Nilfgaardians are killing Witchers? I thought there was a school in-”

“The Viper School?” Gezras smiled again, but it didn’t reach his eyes. As if it was an expression he couldn’t help but make out of bitterness. “Schools are an easy thing to eradicate when they become inconvenient. Look at us. What they did after I left Stygga.” Joël’s lips drew into a thin line. Even he felt his mouth mouth twist into a grimace. “Nilfgaard does not like what it can’t control. It doesn’t like monsters, it doesn’t like mages, and it particularly doesn’t like Witchers. Especially those schools that haven’t been known to stay out of politics.”

He looked away at that, silent on the matter. Everyone had to eat, even Witchers. A blade to a stranger was the same equal coin as a Foglet’s teeth. It wasn’t common, but it was known, and the judgement of it began to weigh on his shoulders. Even Gezras seemed to realize how heavy his remark was and slowly he looked away, his expression growing bleak. "War is coming, plain and simple. Kings are dying by a Witcher's hand here in the north and I have a feeling the Black Ones marching isn't a coincidence. Whoever they find in their path is going to disappear. But I have a feeling we'll be more vulnerable than most."

He swallowed thickly for a second, his fingers digging into the leather that crossed over his forearms. "Because we're Cat Witchers and we're sociopaths. Isn't that right?"

Gezras' mouth drew thin for a moment before it relaxed. "No. Because we've always done what we can to survive. And such free will isn't wanted in a civilized society."

He wanted to spit at that, yet he held his tongue, a deep frustration digging into his muscles. Right down to the marrow. Was this what the future was becoming? Witchers were already a dying breed, but to be purposely hunted seemed beyond sick. It wasn't as if he wanted to become this. A freak in human flesh.

Before he could even go further with his thoughts, Gezras spoke again. “Gaetan. I asked Joël to send you a message because I heard you were nearby." He raised his head at that. He heard he was in the area? How? "You need to leave.”

Again, he blinked. Stupid from being taken off-guard. “Leave?”

“Cidaris. Temeria. Even Redania, if that’s possible. All of us do,” he said quietly, his shoulders sinking down lower, as if in mutual defeat. It was again a strange sight, considering the tension from before. How easy it was for him to slide between emotions. As if he had a handle on his. “As much as it disgusts me to flee in such a way, I still prefer to live over the alternative of rotting while hanging from a tree. Or having my head be cut off for a crowd.”

A sensation of drowning began to fill his stomach. Flooding it with the weight of what was being asked, turning his throat raw. He wasn't used to taking in so many damn shifts in the world at once. “You… Want me to go further North?”

The former Grandmaster nodded, acknowledging him. “That would be the smartest. I hear Kovir and Poviss are considered neutral territory, but I’d stick to the mountains myself.”

The weight only grew as it began to sit on his shoulders, like a harpy that had caught him with its talons. The logistics of it alone were starting to pick at his mind and furiously bring it back to his scrambled reality. Go north? To the damn mountains? At this time of year? “It’s going to be autumn soon," he found himself saying. Pinpointing the first flaw.

Gezras sighed. “I know.”

He knew? “You know?” he stumbled. “Autumn in the far north. It’s-?”

“I know,” Gezras repeated, as if it not only pained him to do so, but irritated him as well. “I’m aware of what I’m saying, Gaetan.”

He didn’t have any words. Even looking to Joël gave him nothing - not solidarity in the realization of what was being asked - and he found himself at a loss. “That’s suicide,” he finally said, gaping at Gezras. At Joël, of all the damn Witchers in the world. One he would expect to be saying the same fucking thing. “If we all go North, we’ll freeze to death before we even get past Blaviken.”

Gezras’ cheek twitched. “I didn’t say it would be easy.”

He felt a small bit of defiance well up inside at that. As if words should alone be enough to abate a fucking suicide expedition. “You’re telling me I either stay here and get hanged or go north and freeze to death?”

“I’m telling you what’s happening,” he said, his tone switching instantly to a colder one. But it didn’t have the bite like it did before. It just nipped at his open wounds. “I wouldn’t damn well be here if this wasn’t serious.”

He wanted to argue with that. He could have - should have. Who the hell was he to say this? A former Grandmaster? A leader that he didn't even know? He was a half-elf who had spent more than a century down south. Where he had been wanting to go because being in the north was more tiring every damn day. But now he was being denied it, lectured by a ghost with his former mentor in tow, to tell him that not only was war coming and any thoughts of going south insane, but going north and dying by frost was a better option.

It bewildered him. It pissed him off for a moment. Fervently. Enough that he wanted to draw a sword; Fight, snarl, destroy. He seethed for a second and he didn't care if both Gezras and Joël saw.

But the sinking in his gut wasn’t stopping and it left him drained of the strength to even spittle out a meagre protest. Joël seemed to sense it, his own shoulders falling in defeat, and they all stood silent, the fire behind them weakly crackling as the rain continued to pound outside. The deluge still hadn’t let up, each raindrop that fell turning the world into an even colder, more unforgiving place, and he listened to it between their depressed silence. That all around them the forest was changing, the darkness morphing the trees into black shadows with gnarled arms, and when he found himself listlessly looking beyond the door, he saw nothing but dusk and gloom. And endless tide of the pitch black sky. The only light came from the little fire that struggled to live itself in its abandoned hearth, and its fight was going about as well as theirs.

This was the new reality. And he couldn't even defy it.

Gezras moved first, slow as a waking elemental, but he took a place by the fireplace as the shadows drew deep lines under his eyes, his body folding into a kneeled position that looked more drained than meditative. He didn’t look like a Witcher, not properly. The dusk that had crept in was now drawing strange shades over his sculpted face and he appeared old and tired - beyond even the normal years of an elf. Joël stepped forward next, moving to join him, sitting opposite with a weary thud, and he realized even he reflected the deep signs of age. Of a man who had taught too many kids and had watched too many of them die. That he was as backed into the corner as they were.

It was a morose realization that made him unwillingly remember their past. How he had been the only one out of the six boys brought to the Caravan that lived that year. His mutations had worked, but not without nearly killing him first and truly murdering the other five. He had watched ones older and younger than him die as time dragged on, every one a boy that had cried like he had the first few days, but after a while it was easier to bury them and forget than to remember and regret.

Now he was left with a handful of others. Mentors too stubborn to die. A grandmaster he assumed dead until that point. Only to be told they’d all be dying again.

He moved to sit down as well, not just because his bones ached and his skin was damp and cold. Nor because he felt any harsh camaraderie for his former mentor and the Grandmaster at that point. He just wanted a place. To sit between those who understood in that moment the bleakness of their reality. This wasn’t because of the Path. It wasn’t because of monsters. It was because people - fellow humans whose blood he once shared - now considered them inconvenient. They were created for them. To help. Now it was either die by their hands or die by the cold.

Joël looked over to him once, but he didn’t bother to glance back as he stared at the fire. No doubt his age was showing as well. Eighty years.

He felt older than the earth.

Nothing passed between them as the fire continued to waver and eat through the thin branches, churning them to ash and spitting out a flicker or spark when the core ran too hot. Only when the light began to pull back into the fireplace, hiding and shivering as it searched for more to fuel itself, did he speak. The rest of them weren’t willing but he was. What else did he have to lose? “What now?”

Joël met his eyes first, but he didn't respond. It left him room to continue.

“Packing up and leaving,” he remarked, somber, thinking of where he currently was making his home; Lofts of barns were often overlooked to his benefit and hay made better bedding than stone. It wasn’t a nice place, admittedly, but it was something. A place he had established after wandering to and from Spalla to Vergen to Novigrad. Miles on his fraying boots that would probably disintegrate if he attempted to cross the Pontar to go perish in an unforgiving tundra. “How many more times do I have to do it?”

Gezras answered before Joël could in a tone that he could only describe as callous. As if their moment of reflection had only made him indifferent instead of pessimistic. “We’ve never had a permanent home. You should be used to this.”

He scowled at him and his tongue ran before he could stop it. “And whose fault is that?”

Again, cold eyes regarded him, but nothing more was said on the matter. And for once he knew it wasn’t about prying - it was a boundary no one was allowed to step over. And not even he would regard or speak of it. “You’re a cat, Gaetan. A Cat Witcher and therefore akin to our monikers in real life. People don’t want us unless it’s to chase away mice. Once you’re marked as useless, it’s either death by their hands or death by your own.” He leaned back for a second, letting his head neck stretch and expose itself, showing off where there were visible puncture scars near his artery. The shadows under his eyes deepened, making him appear sickly and grave, yet he couldn’t tell if it was the trick of the light or not that made him look so ghastly in that moment. 

How long had their Grandmaster been alive? How long could he last?

“Gaetan, take it from me,” he continued. “You can either resent it, resent me, this life, your fate, or whatever else if you wish to. Blame the gods. Go get drunk on cheap wine or kill anyone who looks at you cross. Or you can accept it and seek a form of peace for yourself.”

It didn’t sound at all appealing. Either option. In fact, it sounded like the type of shit Cedric used to tell them all when they were kids. He called it philosophy, but they all knew it was just bullshit he took from a fable. Yet he wasn’t in the mood to start a fight about it; On the deconstruction of their values and beliefs. Because the way he spoke, it sounded too close to the old Witcher’s own ideology than one any of them could subscribe to. “That’s what you did?” Gezras didn’t look to him as he slipped his own subtle accusation at him. He didn't want his dogma. He wanted definitive answers. “You left us all because you wanted peace?”

He was quiet for a moment. “I left,” he finally said. “Because human, elf, dwarf - it didn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. None of them give a damn. Especially when you don’t meet their expectations.” It was his turn to frown at his words and he saw Joël carefully observing Gezras as well, listening with a tilted ear. “You’ll live long enough to realize the only one you can trust is yourself. Both of you,” he nodded to Joël again, forcing him into their conversation. “I was sick of nearly dying for a handful of coppers and knives in my ribs. I found something better and I took it. And I damn well don’t care if no one approves.” His eyes flicked down to the where the fire lay. To the boards that had turned darker under their bodies as they drank up the moisture that had sunk into their clothes and bones. “You’re smart enough to make your own decisions. I'm here because I just wanted to warn you and any other Cats I came across. If you don't leave now, things will turn ugly. Uglier than you even know.”

It didn’t feel like a warning or a merciful piece of advice to save their souls. It felt like a death sentence had been told to him. Even Joël seemed dour on the prospect, but unlike him, he still couldn’t let it go. Not without something - anything - to understand. A sliver of something. No one had ever given him anything when he had been changed. It had just happened because it had. But Gezras had left and that sure the fuck wasn’t due to fate.

Fate was cruel to every single one of them. Yet their Grandmaster was still alive. In bloody Vicovaro of all the damn places.

“Why did you leave us?” Gezras gave him a blank, emotionless look. He pressed further, knowing somewhere in him he wanted to explain himself. Otherwise he would have just gone North himself and left them all to deal with running a few steps from an invasion. “Why don’t you just lead us now, if you’re so worried?” he said, holding his gaze. “Instead of just sending a note and-? What? Expecting us to blindly follow?” Gezras said nothing. “Why aren’t you leading us, Gezras. All of us. Those of us who are still damn well left?”

He barely seemed to care it made his anger surge. Like a rogue wave crashing against black, jagged rocks. "Why'd you abandon us?"

He nearly laughed. And it was a more horrible sound than he expected to come from such a being. It was mirthless and strained, as if he didn’t know how to make such a sound. Like wind being sucked through teeth - short and startling, yet silenced quicker than natural, like a throat being squeezed. “What makes you think I ever wanted to lead in the first place?” he bared his teeth for a second before his scarred lip dropped. “I’m doing this because in the end, kid, I don’t like seeing those who share my mutations get butchered. I’ve seen it enough.”

It wasn’t an answer and he dug his fingers into his knees, gripping himself. “You led before. Stygga Castle's massacre-”

“I did that because I was owed it,” he quickly snapped, sucking all warmth out of the room as his eyes flashed and he once again looked like a demon in an sculpture’s body. Shocking him back into a reflexive, defense crouch. “Because my vengeance was due. Because I wasn't going to damn well keep letting those butchers get away with discarding us as if we were like disfigured rats that didn't mean anything to begin with."

He swallowed down his anger at that. Beside him, Joël's eyes averted. Because he was just as guilty as the mages. Yet Gezras didn't comment as his voice dropped, his anger waning as the bitterness took hold. "I didn’t crawl out of that pit to grandstand for centuries after. I did it because between living and dying, I prefer to live. And we didn't deserve to be thrown away like that. By them."

"You were still-"

"I was chosen because I was the strongest among the few of us left. Not because I wanted it. I did it because I had to." His eyes grew dark as he began drilling holes into his body once more. Slicing through him, threatening him to stand down, but he forced himself not to avert his gaze. He was the start of all of their lives being this way. The failed experiments that led to an entire generation of other failed Witchers.

“We’re still all in that pit,” he said, quietly. Using his own situation to try and make him realize the position they were thrown in.

Gezras barely even flinched. “And I have tossed you a rope. I’m not your leader. And Grandmaster was never a title I accepted. Your choices are your own.”

He wanted to rip the rope down and wrap it around his neck to pull tight. Even Joël seemed to look hurt at the implication, his own eyes slowly unwinding from the slits they had been, but neither of them defied it. He wanted to, but in the end, what did it matter? Maybe they all were too much like real cats. Getting a bunch of toms in a room meant that there would be an inevitable flash of claws and blood on the floor. He just didn’t expect it to come along with the knowledge that he was trapped in the room forever as well. Freeze or be beheaded.

How he wished this had been an ambush now than a slap across the face.

Gezras, it seemed, had hit the wall as well, and he pulled his cloak around himself, his curved sword scraping softly against the boards. “Take my advice or don’t, it doesn’t matter to me. I’ve warned you.” He slowly moved to stand, the fire flickering for a second, nearly going out from the sweep of his movement, but it miraculously held its flame. “I’m heading north. And as I told Joël last night, I’m extending this offer to you as well, Gaetan. You’re free to come with me.”

He didn’t say anything to the proposal, his lips drawing thin as he looked to the fire instead. Yet Gezras didn’t seem to take offense. Instead he merely nodded to Joël, not seeming to care one way or the other. “Or don’t. Go with the Caravan. Or find your own way.”

For a moment, he did look to Joël, but his mentor merely stared at the fire. Unwilling to offer his own alliance it seemed. So his options were either freeze to death with a Witcher he had only read about in faded notes and books, or freeze to death by himself. Out of curiosity, he found himself asking a final question. “Who else is with you?”

Gezras nearly smiled. This time it did reach his eyes and a slight flicker of amusement danced in the depths of his pupils. “No one in particular. No other witchers, anyway.”

He couldn’t help but frown at his wording. “Meaning?”

“Meaning you’re free to follow. Or go with Joël. Whatever you choose, I gave you my advice and warning.” He rounded past him, pulling his cloak around him tight as he brought up his hood, but he paused in the door. As if he was giving him one last chance to follow. “Do what you want on your Path, Witcher. But when the world falls to shit, it's best to take cover than to stand there and embrace it."

Without another word he was gone, leaving him alone with Joël who said nothing to his departure. It left him sullen and suspicious - no, it left him angry and depressed. He nearly blew up, the bubbling anger rising in his through, but instead he found himself looking to his former mentor for anything as they remained sitting on the floor. Some semblance of what to do. His advice, his instruction. Anything from the damned Witcher who had cracked wooden swords on his hands and made him run until he threw up.

Yet Joël looked just as frustrated and tired. More human than he ever had. It wasn't something a student ever wanted to see from their teacher.

“Joël,” he started. His cheek twitched at the sound of his name. “You can’t seriously be thinking of going north at this time.”

He said nothing. Nothing. As if he had finally run out of insults and sarcastic remarks to lay down. Which was impossible.

“You’ll-! Everyone'll all fucking die!” he said. When nothing came, he finally exploded like a child. Like the one he had raised him to grow out of, but obviously not well enough. “For fuck’s sakes, Joël! Will you fucking say something!”

He sighed, moving to rub at his ear like he had blown it out. At least it was a start of him acting normal again instead of cowering to the Grandmaster like he had. “Gaetan, I listened to the advice, same as you. I know it’s a little shocking to see someone everyone thought was dead suddenly appear. I damn well thought he was a doppler, but he drank from a silver goblet without warning and even offered to eat one of our swords if we so cared. But…” He hesitated, his rambling story not helping ease his own frustrations. “Gezras is right. Whether I like it or not. And the caravan has always been its Path.”

“On its path,” he repeated. “So you’re not going north? Because the last time I remember, Cedric and you always said the Path is where ever it goes. It’s not predetermined.”

The old cat didn’t look at him as he moved to grab the stick and push the last of the blackened branches at the pea-sized fire. “The Path is the Path. And we follow it.”

“So you’re not going north?” Joël’s cheek twitched, just like it did when he found something that displeased him. He couldn’t help but gape dumbly at him. “Joël.”

“We follow the road,” he stated bluntly, trying to end their conversation. 

He wouldn’t let it go, not that easily. “So you’re going north?”

“If the road-”

“Joël!” he spat, cutting him off. The immediate flash of eyes made him flinch, but he wasn’t a kid anymore. Not one clumsy enough to be too slow to dodge the slash of a sword, anyway. “You can’t. You’re going to-”

“Gaetan,” he sighed deeply, and it was the first time he had ever heard him take such a tone. He knew it was insanity, yet he still was willing to take it. “If there’s one thing Gezras is right about it’s this. If you can prevent watching your fellow brothers die, you do it. Once is far more than enough.” For a second, his eyes were almost like glass. Even in a dying firelight he could see a shine on them that made his anger drain away. It left him once again feeling deflated, like a water skin that had been torn open, and he stared at the boards. To where their former Grandmaster had been sitting, how dark the wood was where he had sat, the rain soaking into the tired floor.

It didn't ease himself. His own trembling, angry confusion on what to do. "That's bullshit," he countered at him. "You watched how many potential Witchers die. Yet now you care?"

"They were recruits, Gaetan." He knew that was the truth. All of them - every damn one of them knew what the mutations meant. It still didn't ease the regret. Joël seemed to understand. "If any of us could have saved them, we would have."

He only stared at the boards, but he knew it was true. "So you're going to head north then? And have the entire Caravan die together in a snowbank."

“We’re going to Gors Velen.”

That made him raise his head in surprise. Joël didn’t look to him as he did it, his own gaze preoccupied on the stick within his hand. He snapped it in two, folding the pieces together, before he gave them both to the pebble-shaped flame. Feeding it one last time.

“Then where?” he asked.

“We’ll see,” he said with barely a hint of a shrug. “If Schrödinger shows up, maybe to Oxenfurt. There’s a professor there I usually trade books with.”

They lapsed into silence once more. He had heard tales of Oxenfurt. A small city, mostly disconnected with whatever was happening around it. Scholars and scribes inhabited the place for the most part, honing their skills for whatever lunacy they wished. Some studied a single plant for years, always eager to try and gleam knowledge from a Witcher when their plants somehow crossed, as if he gave a damn about the shape of petals from arenaria. He had always found them annoying and strange, but Oxenfurt had an advantage of being built surrounded by water.

Novigrad’s walls were said to be bigger however. And larger. If all the south’s army was marching, would Novigrad’s walls and Oxenfurt’s water be enough to hold them off?

It was conflicting. It didn’t feel like the better choice between the two - hide in a city. Surround himself with people who would probably try and kick the shit out of him and sell his swords for thirteen crowns. But at least if an entire city was going to burn, he wouldn’t be alone in dying. And warm fires were better than frozen wastes. Technically.

He admitted his previous plans to his old mentor. To see what he thought as they continued to sit and brood, neither one willing to move just yet as the rain continued to fall outside, dropping the temperature around them into an even colder darkness. The reality was still a bit too bleak to face, he had to admit, and he hadn't been lying about his wish from earlier. He really did want to converse with someone who understood the strained insanity of their life. Because sometimes complaining did feel good. “I was going to go to Kerack City.”

“Fine place,” he said, though there was no mirth in his voice. It bordered close to sarcastic. It sounded better than outright defeat, though. 

“They pay ten orens for drowner heads.”

“That’s not a lot.”

“It’s all I could find recently,” he said, his voice dropping into a lament.

“Hm.”

“Hm," he echoed back sarcastically. Yet he didn't really expect anything less from fucking Joël.

As if on cue, the old cat stood up and he watched him with careful eyes as he stiffly leaned on his left leg. First he stretched, the pops that cracked from his his spine making his own bones ache and wish to unknit in such a crude manner, but then Joël started rolling his shoulders and neck, his hand moving to his breast pocket where his damn pipe was kept. When he lit it, he hardly found himself surprised. The bastard was probably going to die with the pipe in his mouth.

“Gors Velen may pay thirteen coppers for a head, cat fuzz” he said, not looking to him as the fire finally snuffed out, killing the last warmth and light the hut had. He still scowled at him in the dark, his eyes easily adjusting but he still preferred to see with a bit of help. “Better than ten.”

He pretended to sigh. “It’s probably warmer in Kerack.”

“Now you’re just being stupid.” He heard him suck in a breath through his pipe, the scent of stale tobacco slowly filling the hut and he found himself rolling his eyes as he quietly pushed himself off the floor. Gors Velen wasn’t at all where he wanted to go, but it had been a damn long time since he had seen Axel or Cedric. And if this would be the last time they lived, maybe it would be worth it.

“Where’s Gezras gone?” he asked seriously as he gazed back out into the depths of the now black forest around them. 

“Dunno,” Joël admitted. He sucked on his pipe again. “He just showed up at the Caravan last night. Thought he was a damn ghost, the way he came out of the trees.

Somehow, that was a little unsettling. Even at his age, the last time he had seen Axel, the bastard could still pick up movement at five hundred paces away. “So you don’t know where he is?”

“Not a clue,” Joël said, his voice growing quiet.

“What if I wanted to find him?”

He heard his teeth click on the wood of his pipe before he saw him wiggle it back and forth between his lips. His mannerisms were always so damned strange. “You’d have to use your senses.”

It would have made him bare his teeth or quip back, but after all he had heard, he wasn’t in the mood to try. If Gezras had been a ghost coming to the caravan, how would he expect any of them to find him? Unless that was the point. A test on their seriousness - maybe even their skill. It hardly seemed fair.

Perhaps that was the point.

He took a long moment before he asked formed another question. “Has he always been like this?” He watched his mentor shift slightly. “You said you met him before to us. Back when we were all together. Aiden, me. Jad. Kiyan. Brehen.” A long, thin line of smoke escaped his lips and he frowned at him as the rain grew heavy for a few seconds, the pounding above them near deafening before it slacked. “You never said he was-?”

“Such a prick?” Joël finally sighed, taking the words out of his mouth. “Gezras has always had difficulty with others, Gaetan. Even when I was a young Witcher, there was a difference between us all. And not just because he had the original mutation formula injected in him.” Slowly he moved to tap his pipe against his hand, knocking a few ashes away from the lip. “He was hated by humans for his elven side, looked down on by elves for his human side. You don’t live as long as he does without holding a few grudges.”

There was nothing to argue with that. They all knew the bitter seed of a grudge well. Even the most placid of Witchers. “He attacked the mages who screwed up our formula at Stygga castle, didn’t he?”

“He did.”

“Now it's as if he wants nothing to do with us,” he said. Even as he voiced it, it felt harsh and confusing. Brehen they all understood and he was damned happy never to see him again. But this seemed different. “Why?”

Once more did Joël take a moment to think. To inhale from his pipe, his eyes sinking to where the fire had been and the small flickering ashes puffed with dying life. “He wants nothing to do with anyone. That’s the difference. I don’t think it’s intentional, Gaetan. I think it’s just the way he is.” He exhaled deeply, the notion making him even feel exhausted. “Some of you boys say you don’t like people, but we know what you really mean. You don’t like people that cheat you. Hate you. Try and gut you in the night.”

“Who does,” he said, raising a brow.

“That’s the difference, Gaetan. Gezras has just never really liked anyone.” He frowned at the statement. “I think he truly enjoys being alone. But there’s still a sliver of humanity in him that tries to care. It just doesn't know how.”

“How can he be like this?” he had to pry. “Was I supposed to take this meeting as compassion then?” Joël shrugged, as if even he couldn't tell. "We either die one way or die another?"

“I don’t know, Gaetan. I'm not a mind reader, nor do I want to be in these damn times. But he came to us to give us a choice. A warning, even. And you can make one now.” He frowned at that, not understanding. It wasn't until the old bastard had exhaled twice did he elaborate. “I don’t mind if you tag along with the caravan. Maybe we’ll go north past Oxenfurt, maybe we won’t. Or you can seek out Gezras, go with him. Or find your own way. Up to you.”

He didn’t like any option. Every single one made him feel trapped and alone. Backed against a corner, ready to be manipulated, the threat coming at him without him being able to dodge it or fight back. It seemed so damn bleak to force him to accept one platitude or the other, but the more he dwelled and mulled, the longer he couldn't deny one thing; Maybe it had been out of some mislaid compassion to tell him. Maybe the former Grandmaster did care. If he hadn't read Joël's note, he would have gone back to his base - the barn - and charted out another month or two of hunting along the coast. Ten orens here and there for some heads. Maybe a competition at cards or dice poker, if he was feeling up to trying to discreetly Axii an opponent. But a marching army hadn't been anything he could have anticipated.

In all likelihood, he would have woken up to the barn burning and been hunted right then and there for the pleasure of group of hounds.

He paused for a moment as the scenarios rolled over in his head. Burning cities, southern sun, or ever-consuming winters in a land that was colder than sin. “Joël?”

“Hm?”

“Do you really care what option I choose?”

It took a long time for his mentor to reply. “No.”

Typical.

“But Gaetan,” he cut in before he could think of leaving. Stopping him from making a small choice right there on what he would do. “I would prefer it if you didn’t purposely choose suicide.”

“So going-”

“South.” He said, surprising him once more. As if he really had been reading his mind. “If you go south, there’s nothing we can do. We can’t help you. Not even Gezras can. If you go south and you die-” he frowned, letting the last part fall off. It created a strange air between them, filled with the scent of smoke, rain, and morose understanding. That the meeting tonight hadn't been in vain and no matter their choices, one thing was clear; Cats still could care for others. Even if it was only limited to their own kin. “I’d prefer it if you gave the north a shot.”

“Why?” he asked one last time.

“Because you can always light fires in the north, Gaetan. But you - we - can’t sew your own head back on.” With that he stubbed out his pipe. "So don't do anything rash."

He didn't even laugh. Because he found himself nodding in agreement.

"I won't."

"...That's all I ask."


End file.
